The troubled launch of Overwatch 2 is a full-blown saga now. Right now, in an try to handle points pertaining to Torbjörn and Bastion, Blizzard introduced that it might be pulling the characters solely from some sport modes. Don’t fret for those who don’t see them, that half is intentional. Whereas there’s no phrase on how lengthy the characters shall be inaccessible, the transfer is presumably to repair Bastion’s infinite final, together with a Torbjörn skill that lacked its cooldown. Someway, in doing so, Blizzard has created a completely new downside: A whole swath of characters are not accessible for some gamers.
Logging in myself, as somebody who beforehand had your entire roster unlocked, I now have 12 characters whom I can not entry. They’re Doomfist, Sigma, Wrecking Ball, Ashe, Echo, Mei, Sombra, Symmetra, Torbjörn, Zenyatta, Kiriko, Baptiste, and Brigitte. Restarting the sport didn’t assist with unlocking the characters, nor did restarting my PS5. The characters merely retained the little lock icon, despite the fact that I used to be enjoying with a few of these inaccessible characters simply earlier at the moment. And taking a look at social media, I’m not alone on this concern: There are a ton of confused people who don’t know what’s happening proper now, yelling at Blizzard to undo it.
“What’s going on at Blizzard now???” one participant tweeted, whereas commenting on their incapacity to entry their full roster. “Can’t play virtually any of my mains,” one other who’s experiencing the roster concern stated.
This follows after every week of different large points, during which gamers couldn’t log into the sport in any respect, had hassle migrating their accounts from the primary Overwatch, couldn’t use pay as you go telephones, and bizarrely, suffered a technical concern whereby the chat might in some way purchase issues from the shop. Whereas all of those points have been mounted or improved, gamers maintain discovering different bugs or unfinished property. It’s all left the impression that Overwatch 2 feels extra like an early-access sport than a fully-fledged, polished, completed product. And with the developer having to drag whole characters and ending up breaking your entire sport within the course of, it’s getting more durable to argue in protection of Overwatch 2 even whether it is enjoyable to play.
Kotaku’s reached out to Blizzard to inquire about this monumental bug. From the sounds of it, this isn’t the primary time that some gamers have been locked out of accessing characters since launch, however the concern seems to be considerably extra widespread than earlier than. In response to gamers who skilled the bug previous to at the moment, it took a couple of day for it to resolve.
Replace 11:41 p.m. ET: Overwatch went down for upkeep for an estimated hour, and is now again up for those who’re presently studying this. In a discussion board put up that compiles identified points, Blizzard acknowledged the locked characters bug, noting that “That is attributable to a difficulty with our servers that tracks participant development. We’re working to get this concern resolved as rapidly as doable.” After I initially loaded the sport on PS5, I might entry all my beforehand unlocked roster. Chatting with different gamers, it looks like a combined bag. Some are discovering the difficulty is now gone, others nonetheless have their characters gone. This tracks, as a result of the locked roster was a factor that some had been experiencing previous to tonight, it simply occurred to massively unfold after the preliminary Torb + Bastion repair. Your mileage might fluctuate. Whereas my roster is again, I now have a very new concern: I maintain getting kicked out of video games.
Correction 10/10/2022 8:38 p.m. ET: This put up beforehand acknowledged it was over half the roster, when it’s 12 out of 34. Nevertheless, gamers are reporting totally different numbers of inaccessible characters than I personally am experiencing.